


Protection

by mybeanieandme



Category: The Old Guard (Comics)
Genre: Alpha Nicky, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, M/M, PWP, Smut, fleeting threats of non-con from a third party, nicky puts an end to that immediately, omega joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybeanieandme/pseuds/mybeanieandme
Summary: When Yusuf battles Nicolo in 1099 it's the first time he's forgotten his heat suppressants. But Nicolo would sooner run him through with a blade than knot him.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 7
Kudos: 192





	Protection

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly drabbles to explore how this dynamic would work for them as a couple. I feel like I wrote- more than I should have in description and in tags but I also want you to have the comfort of knowing- this is just a lot of bottom joe at the end of the day.

His first battle had been his first heat. He had been Yusuf then. He had reached his 17th year and it arrived without warning and all his parents' hopes of him being an alpha had gone just as quick. But they were supportive and even back then they had had medicines to help. When Yusuf had died in the heat of battle, having never found an alpha, he thought it was just as well. No man he had ever met had been quite so pretty as the one that had stabbed him through his heart. But even then, when he woke up beside him, the other man inexplicably stirring even with Yusuf’s blade through his belly, he had sliced through him again. 

They did that for days, grisly and bloody until both were exhausted. That was the only time Yusuf had forgotten to suppress his heat in all his 33 years. The feeling tore through him like his enemy’s blade. It was with dawning realization that if he could never die- he would have these heats forever. That was far worse than biology designating you an omega. 

“That smell-,” his enemy said as he wiped his sword on tattered cloth too far gone to make anything clean. Of course his undying enemy was an alpha. Of course he was. Doomed forever to roam the earth with all of the privilege and power he clearly thought he was entitled to as he had joined this crusade to invade a distant land. Yusuf should have seen it earlier as they battled, but he'd chocked the aggression up to the hatred he could see in the man's eyes. 

“Please-,” Yusuf had begged then. He needed the violence to stop, adrenaline crashing through his body and mixing with the hormones as they surged through him. 

“What have you got, Nicolo?” asked a man. He was broad and burley with an unfriendly face. “I thought I saw you kill this one days ago.”

Nicolo- the man had killed him a hundred times but Yusuf had killed him just as many. Yusuf saw his eyes go wide as he realized what was happening. They had battled for so long, the stench of it masking everything. But now Yusuf’s scent was too strong. It permeated everywhere else. 

The newcomer took a deep ragged breath. “Or were you keeping this one around for something more, Nico?”

Yusuf needed to flee, he was terrified and the hormones were too much for his brain to make logical decisions. He looked to his enemy pleadingly, for what he did not know, but a moment passed between them. Yusuf’s heart had raced at the look in Nicolo’s eye. 

Nicolo moved between them. “He’s mine.”

His countryman shook his head. “Now, now, Nicolo. Don’t be so selfish. We’ve taken the city and we will take the spoils we’ve earned.”

“If you so much as take one step further towards him I will strike you down where you stand,” there was alpha authority in Nicolo’s voice now. It wasn’t enough to drive the other man away but it was enough to make Yusuf’s heat worse. 

The smell of Yusuf pulled the other man closer and Nicolo followed through on his promise, striking him with two forceful blows and watching him fall with no remorse.

Nicolo ran to Yusuf then, pulling away just short of grabbing him. “We have to go now!” Was all he managed to say as he grabbed his sword. Yusuf could do nothing but obey, fear percolating in his chest as he trusted this man who had killed him a hundred times and saved him only once. 

They found shelter in a rocky ridge before Yusuf’s heat became unbearable and Nicolo was fighting every urge to take him. “Maybe it would just be better-,” Yusuf’s voice came soft and pleading from the far side of the cave in which they’d found themselves.

“I would sooner kill you than take that from you,” Nicolo said as he devised ways to protect his enemy from other worse enemies and more importantly, himself. 

“If it’s offered freely?” Yusuf was going to beg. 

“Nothing offered in heat is offered freely,” he growled in his alpha voice and Yusuf only drew closer. He could see how hard Nicolo was fighting the urge to give in but his resolve was unwavering. 

When Yusuf leaned in, Nicolo stabbed him through the belly. 

They both remembered it as clear as day. It was definitely when Yusuf realized not all of the Christian invaders were created as equally as he thought. By his next heat, Nicolo had been sure that he’d had the medicine he had needed and had found some to help himself. Yusuf’s world had medical advances Nicolo’s could scarcely begin to imagine. Nicolo reveled in the control over his ruts. The two had been that way ever since. 

It was several months after that when they finally bonded and paired for life. Yusuf neglected the medicine on purpose after he and Nicolo had talked about it with clear heads and full hearts. The lifetime you spent together pair bonded had to mean more when that life went on seemingly forever. Nicolo wanted them to be sure that this was out of something deeper and not out of convenience. Nicolo was different than any other alpha Yusuf had ever met. He was so kind and gentle, saving all his aggression for killing and protecting his Yusuf. The hours they’d spent together were spent falling in love. 

The first time Yusuf felt Nicolo’s knot, he felt the world unravel completely and he became consumed. Why had they waited this long to do this? They’d slept together dozens of times by then but not like this. Oh stars above, not like this. This was different and so far beyond. Yusuf lost himself to the power of Nicolo’s thrusts and the sinking of his teeth into the back of his neck as he came for what felt like the first time ever in his life. 

When they finally met the women they’d dreamed of they had it down to a routine. Yusuf barely remembered his own heat cycle because Nicolo did it for him, reminding him the week before and asking what he wanted to do. Usually it led to them finding a place to hide for a few days while Nicolo gave him everything he needed. 

It happened less in modern times, but it still gave Joe a thrill when they planned missions. It was a little more difficult with the specificity of executing covert ops, Joe was more often than not on heavier suppressants (he would swear up and down the technology for such things got worse and worse the further they got into “western” pharmaceuticals. 

“We’re flying out next Wednesday-,” Andy said to Nicky, a floor plan before her. 

“Joe and I will be gone all of next week,” Nicky reminded her gently.

“Right,” Andy nodded and pulled out another floor plan. “That’s right- we’ll see how well that sniper training’s been going then with Nile.”

“She’s doing quite well,” Nicky assured her with his softest smile. “Joe’s been teaching her to throw knives too.”

“I’m ready,” Nile piped up from where she and Joe were eavesdropping in the hallway. 

Andy chuckled as she entered. “I was just about to come find you and cover everything.”

“Put me in coach,” Nile beamed at her. 

Nicky stole away, pulling Joe down the hallway with him and into their bedroom. 

“I’m going to take you away,” Nicky told him softly, just a hint of his alpha voice. They’d been doing this so long he knew how to hold back. He felt the shiver down Joe’s spine as his hands found the small of his back and held him close. 

“They’ll be alright-,” Joe was assuring the both of them as Nicky pressed kisses to his neck. 

Nicky nodded, “We’ve been training her for months, amore mio.” And then he went back to kissing him. He could nearly smell it on him already, barely there. “If Andy truly needed us, she would tell us and we would stay.”

“I need you, Nicolo,” Joe said softly.

“I need you too,” Nicky said and could hardly keep from rutting gently against his omega just once. 

That Monday they were on a plane to their favorite destination. Joe’s hormones were starting to go wiry in a way that made him particularly affectionate. It had been nearly a decade since they’d really done this, really let Joe have his heat and they were indulging. 

“Honeymoon?” the stewardess guessed as she handed out hot towels to first class.

“Absolutely,” Nicky smiled at her. 

When they reached their hotel room it was all Joe could do to keep his clothes on before the door was shut and bolted. 

“Need it, Nicky,” Joe pressed his nose to the back of Nicky’s head. 

“I know, my love,” Nicky said and turned to kiss him. He stripped him bare then, guiding him back to the large four poster bed and its billowing white linen curtains. The morning sun was still low in the sky as he turned Joe over and tasted his slick. 

He moaned obscenely. God it had been too long since he tasted him like this, the fullness of his scent. “God, Joe-,” Nicky said it like a prayer and let his inhibitions drop, every hint of alpha coming through. He was rewarded with more wetness, pressed to his nose and mouth which he lapped at eagerly until Joe whined with need. 

“Nicolo, please-,” Joe’s fingers were tangled in the soft sheets and he was holding on for dear life as his cock dribbled between his legs. Nicky turned him over then and lay between his legs, letting his thick cock press against his entrance. 

Their eyes met, one soft moment of clarity before the bacchanal of giving in carnal desires. “I love you,” Nicolo said as he pressed their foreheads together, mouth just hovering above Joe’s. 

“I love you too,” Joe answered him, he could feel his own slickness on the fringes of his beard. 

“I’m going to give you everything you need now,” Nicky promised him and sealed it with a kiss. The taste of himself in his mouth overwhelmed him and Joe wrapped his legs around Nicky’s waist, pulling him closer. Nicky’s tip slid in and they both moaned deep from their bellies like animals. 

Nicky wasted no time then, snapping his hips into his lover, into his omega, chasing the tight warmth of him as Joe got slicker. Joe wrapped himself around Nicky entirely as his alpha found the perfect rhythm to drive him wild. It was steady long strokes that drove him deep. Nicky leaned back on his haunches and pulled Joe with him and into his lap, his pounding never stopping. 

The new angle angle made Joe whimper and Nicky felt his slick dribble down his balls so he fucked him harder. They shared bruising kisses as Joe came for the first time but Nicky didn’t stop.

Joe’s third orgasm sounded like it hurt just a little, the strangled way he cried out, but he bucked back all the same, needing more, wanting more. Needing Nicky’s knot. He would have it soon and then even more for the rest of the week, Nicky’s long suppressed rut promising to bloom in full force tomorrow, he could feel it rising up in him even now. It was in the way he wanted to hold Joe a little too tightly to him and bite along his shoulders, reform the mark he’d given him nearly a thousand years ago. He needed the world to know this perfect soul was his and his alone. 

He locked himself inside of Joe and came with a bellow, his deep rumbling voice pressed to Joe’s ear, making him whimper. Joe’s overly heated skin seemed calm then at least for a few moments as his own cock gave a feeble dribble. This was all that mattered the feeling of Nicky buried deep in him, locked there as he filled him.

Nicky pulled on his alpha strength to hold Joe to him as they sat tangled together in the sheets. His knot felt impossibly large inside his love and also too good, brain stuck on a loop of dizzying euphoric expressions of pleasure in every language they had ever learned together.

A little while later he changed the sheets as Joe napped in the bathtub, exhausted from the travel and the multiple orgasms. Nicky propped the door open to watch his omega snooze peacefully, head tilted back on the soft hotel towels. He made the same promises to himself he did every time they did this and in the moments in between. He would protect this man with all he had and love him even more, until neither had breath to draw- but even beyond that.


End file.
